no rest for the weary

sometime towards the end of last week, i got an email titled "corn is 4 for a dollar."  and right away i knew that this was an email i would like, because who doesn't like emails about food?  true, i was a little curious because after all, at the height of corn season (still continuing now!) it's usually more like 12 for a dollar at star market.  turns out mary had bought corn at whole foods because it looked and tasted that good, and so we made dinner.

that's dinner cooking away on the stove.  we met at star market in porter square, bought groceries, then walked back to mary's.  i had brought arborio rice with me, so we (ok, i) decided that we were going to have risotto with corn.  i dunno, people, i was a little scattered because i'd just gotten back that afternoon, so i didn't have any grand ideas.  however, while we were at star we passed by the rotisserie chickens.  c has been waxing poetic about rotisserie chickens that sit in the heating pans all day, touting their flavor and texture.  so we bought 1.5 rotisserie chickens to go into the risotto.  and as you can see in the photo, there is a pot o' chicken stock behind the risotto that holds water, chicken better-than-bouillon, and rotisserie chicken bones, and a good hunk of thyme.  as i have recently become a huge fan of warm risotto with a crunchy, raw-veg "relish," we made one with tomatoes, corn, and cilantro, with a very light balsamic vinaigrette dressing, to go with the risotto.  we also added some of the corn into the risotto to get cooked, along with a bunch of frozen peas.

there's blanched broccoli in the back left, for nutritional value.  actually, i'm pretty sure most of the nutritional value disappears into the cooking water because a lot of vitamins are water soluble, so i don't know how much benefit you get from blanched broccoli.  personally, not a fan, i guess because i'm so used to my mother's sauteed broccoli, which she does with garlic and ginger, and which we would have at least once a week.  

and, in the front is the cast iron pan with sugar and peaches caramelizing for the lavender-scented peach upside-down cornmeal cake that we had for dessert.  i think more peaches next time, but it was surprisingly good for such an odd combination of flavors.  

it was rather nice to come back and relax while cooking; i fell right back into the communal cooking patterns that are so ingrained among all of my lmf friends.  i think it's enough of a unique arrangement that i really miss the post-lmf cooking patterns we adapt to after we graduate; we prefer cooking in/for groups, and can really cook together very comfortably because we're all so used to cooking with each other.  that's it for this.